A heating company's website needs a small amount of regular attention rather than a big rescue every few years. This checklist breaks that attention into weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly tasks, and fits them around the heating season. You can work through it yourself; nothing here requires hiring anyone.
Before you start: write down where everything is
The first step is a one-page record of your website's moving parts. Without it, every problem starts with a scavenger hunt.
Record:
- Domain: the registrar (the company where the domain is registered), the account email, and the renewal date
- Hosting: the host, the account email, and who pays the bill
- Website software: the platform (for example WordPress or a website builder) and who has admin logins
- Google Business Profile: who is listed as owner and who as manager
- Email: where your company email is hosted, which is often different from the website
- Call tracking: any tracking numbers on the site and where they forward to
Store this record somewhere two people in the company can reach. If the only person who knows these details leaves, the business should not lose its website.
Weekly: the ten-minute check
Once a week, ideally on the same day, open your site on a phone and do the following.
- Load the home page. Does it appear quickly? Do you see a browser warning about security? A warning usually means the certificate has lapsed.
- Tap the phone number. Does it start a call to the right number? Hang up before it connects if you like.
- Tap the text and email links, if you have them. Do they open with the right number or address?
- Open the emergency or no-heat page. Is the number at the top? Are the hours right?
- Scan for anything odd. Strange links, unfamiliar pop-ups or text in another language can be signs of a compromise.
If everything looks right, you are done. If something is wrong, note it and pass it on the same day.
Why the phone matters more than the desktop
Many heating customers search on a phone, often at home in a cold house. Testing on a desktop at the office can hide problems a phone user sees immediately, such as a button that is too small to tap or a menu that covers the number.
Monthly: updates, backups and a content glance
Once a month, set aside about an hour.
Updates and backups
- Take a full backup of files and database, and store a copy somewhere other than the web server.
- Apply pending updates to the core software, then the theme, then plugins.
- Repeat the weekly check straight afterwards, because updates are when things break.
- Note what you updated and the date, in the same record you made at the start.
If your site has a long list of pending updates because nobody has touched it for a year, do not apply them all at once. Work in small batches, checking between each. The updates and backups page explains why.
Content glance
Read the pages customers use most: home, services, emergency, rebates, about and contact. Ask one question of each: is everything on this page still true today? Typical monthly finds include an old promotion, a technician who has left, changed hours, or a rebate figure that has moved.
Quarterly: access, ownership and accuracy
Every three months, look at the parts of the website that drift slowly.
- Logins. List every account that can sign in to the website. Remove anyone who has left the company or no longer needs access. Make sure no one shares a single admin password.
- Ownership. Confirm the domain and hosting are still in the company's name and that the renewal dates are recorded.
- Google Business Profile. Check that hours, service areas, categories and phone number match the website.
- Rebate and program content. Check every program your site mentions against the administrator's own page. Our guide to keeping rebate pages accurate has a routine for this.
- Broken links. Click through the main menu and footer. Fix or remove anything that leads to an error.
- Restore test. Once or twice a year, ask whoever manages hosting to restore a backup to a test copy of the site. A backup you have never restored is only a hope.
Yearly: a calendar built around the heating season
Heating businesses have a predictable rhythm, and website work should follow it. The months below suit most of southern Canada; shift them earlier in the North, the Prairies and the BC Interior.
| Period | Website focus |
|---|---|
| Late winter (February–March) | Light edits only. Note what customers asked about during the season for spring content. |
| Spring (April–June) | The main window for larger work: new pages, redesigned sections, heat-pump and cooling content. |
| Summer (July–August) | Technical catch-up: updates, plugin clean-up, speed work. Review privacy and legal pages. |
| Early autumn (September) | Final round of optional changes. Switch on fall tune-up and heating messaging. Run the pre-season checks. |
| Heating season (October–January) | Security fixes and essential edits only. Weekly checks every week without fail. |
Our cold-snap readiness guide expands on the September checks.
Common mistakes this checklist prevents
- Discovering an expired certificate from a customer. Weekly checks catch it the same day.
- Losing the domain. Recorded renewal dates and company ownership prevent it.
- Updating without a backup. The monthly routine always starts with one.
- Former staff with admin logins. The quarterly access review removes them.
- Advertising closed rebates. The quarterly program check catches stale claims.
- Redesigning in November. The yearly calendar keeps large work in the quiet months.
When to hand it off
This checklist is manageable for one person who has an hour a month and ten minutes a week. It becomes hard when that person is the owner during the busy season, when the site is large, or when it is bilingual and every change happens twice.
If that sounds familiar, our monthly support service takes on the routine, and the pricing page shows what it costs. Either way, keep the one-page record you made at the start. It is yours, and it is the most valuable page about your website you will ever write.
Frequently asked questions
How long does the weekly check take?
About ten minutes once you have done it a few times. It is a quick look at the pages that make money and a test of the contact links, not a technical audit.
What if I find a problem I cannot fix?
Write down what you saw, when, and on what device, take a screenshot, and pass it to whoever looks after your hosting. A clear report gets a faster fix.
Should I do updates myself?
Small, routine updates are manageable if you always take a backup first and check the key pages afterwards. Large catch-up updates on an old site are safer with technical help.
Does this checklist apply to a site built with a website builder?
Mostly. Builders handle some software updates for you, but content accuracy, contact links, access and ownership are still your responsibility.